Learning to fly, one mistake at a time
Hello,
Welcome to my little part of the internet about learning to fly! As a slightly older guy now in my 50s, who took up flying later in life, I am trying to share my own experiences and insights with you.
Learning to fly has been a dream of mine since I was a young boy, but I never had the opportunity to pursue it until later in life. It has been an exhilarating journey filled with challenges, triumphs, and a newfound sense of freedom.
I'm hoping to inspire others who may have similar dreams of taking to the skies. Whether you are a young person just starting out, or someone who, like me, has waited until later in life to pursue this passion, I believe that anyone can learn to fly with dedication, commitment, and the right mindset. So buckle up, let's take flight and explore the world of aviation together!
My journey first started in 2021, and this site together with YouTube to a certain extent is an attempt to document my experiences in the hope it will help others. I have had ups and downs, learning to fly is not easy, but it is one of the most rewarding things I have ever attempted.
Hopefully you will learn from some of my experiences, and enjoy learning to fly and flying as much as I have done.
A number of people have asked why the Whiskey Alpha Pilot name? Well it's Wayne Allen Pilot in the phonetic alphabet. It is that simple.
Start Here is well here. You are already here. Videos is easy. Thumbnails and Links to all the videos on my YouTube Channel. The Touch and Go Logbook, is basically my logbook, not of each individual flight, but the most notible occurances, as well as the odd comment of being a GA pilot in the modern world. AirFiled Reviews is a growling list id guess what Airfield Reviews - all my own experiences, and Kit Reviews is the same, but for the flying related kit I have bought. Lastly we have the Social Bits - all the places you can find me all over the internet.
There's a man carved into a Dorset hillside who has been showing off for about a thousand years. The Cerne Abbas Giant. Fifty-five metres of chalk, a club in one hand, and absolutely nothing in the way of clothing. You can probably picture him. Most people can.
Back in 2022 we went looking for him from the air. It was a Compton Abbas run, Caz in the right seat and David along for the ride, and somewhere in the plan I'd decided we'd go and find the famous chap on the hill. The one with a big 'club' Spotting a chalk figure from a Cessna sounds easy. It is not. You're craning over the glareshield, trying to match a lumpy green hillside to a picture in your head, while also, you know, flying the aeroplane. We found him in the end. He's hard to miss once you're in the right valley, which is sort of his whole point.
He's in the news this week because the National Trust is giving him a freshen-up. It seems that wetter winters have been washing the chalk off the slope and letting the algae move in, so he's been looking a bit green and faded. Around 300 volunteers are hauling something like 17 tonnes of fresh chalk up a one-in-three hill, by hand, in the heat, to pack his outline back to a crisp white. The last touch-up was only seven years ago. He usually gets a decade between coats.
Which raises a question I keep coming back to. How does the Trust find that many people who actively want to spend a day polishing up a giant? Hundreds of them. There's a lottery for the privilege. I suppose that's what they mean by chalking it up to experience.
Here's the bit that makes me smile though. He's a thousand years old and they're still touching him up, still keeping him sharp, still not letting him fade into the hillside. Sound familiar? We say it all the time round here. We never stop learning, and the day we do is the day we should stop flying. Turns out the same goes for ancient chalk giants. You don't get to coast on a thousand years of reputation. You keep doing the work, or you go green.
Hope he enjoys the new chalk. Hope he's still up there glaring out across Dorset in another thousand years.
You can watch our original hunt for him here: Elstree to Compton Abbas, looking for a Giant with a Knobbly Stick.
There are some people you carry with you long after you've stopped sitting in their classroom. Léon Ellison was one of mine.
Léon was one of my electronics tutors at Royal Holloway. A genius and a gentleman, in that order and both completely. The kind of teacher who made hard things feel reachable, and who treated a slightly-lost undergraduate like the engineer he hoped you'd one day become. I owe him more than I ever told him.
It's true. I hadn't flown in months. November last year was the last time I was in the air. There was an abortive attempt to go night flying in December but circumstances canned that idea. So weather, work, more work, and then the annual appearing just as the weather improved all combined to keep me from flying. Well, that is my excuse, but the real answer is I also got a little lazy, finding excuses to not get my flight bag out and plan a flight. It was easier to start up Netflix than start up SkyDemon. The aerodrome was still there. KK was still there. I just kept finding reasons not to be there.
A neighbourhood in Seattle called Laurelhurst has successfully restricted helicopter landings at the local hospital. Seattle Children's Hospital, to be specific. The complaint? The helicopters are too noisy.
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